A healthy constitution

Turning up recently for an X-ray at my local hospital, I was kept standing at the reception desk for 15 minutes by a disgruntled booking clerk wrestling with a recalcitrant computer system – until we exchanged words (quite polite ones under the circumstances) and discovered that he thought I wanted to make an appointment rather than keep one.

This employee wasn’t rude, but he certainly wasn’t what you’d call “engaged”. He was working like a cog in a wheel that refused to go round, rather than a person who could operate the controls of the machinery.